Several hundred Australian Taxation Office (ATO) employees working at the agency's state-of-the-art Box Hill office in Melbourne have been sent home after the building's water pipes failed once again.
Just days after ATO staff were told last week they could leave the office and work from home (for convenience) due to a previous water damage incident, water from the problematic pipes, which had supposedly been repaired by a plumber the previous Thursday, was once again not working.
In an email sent to all ATO Box Hill employees on Tuesday afternoon, Tax informed staff that the building would be closed and staff travel time would again count as paid hours.
Again headlined “Intermittent water problems” (men over 55 beware), they quickly returned after a long weekend, having supposedly been fixed.
It appears that the Box Hill site experienced its first serious breakdown last Thursday, prompting a series of amusing emails suggesting that staff use the facilities at the local shopping centre as an alternative; a suggestion that management later reconsidered.
However, for some problems a double flush seems to be necessary.
“After last week, we are again experiencing temporary problems with the water supply to the bathrooms in the building. A plumber is on the way. For this reason, we are closing the site,” ATO's facility management told employees on Tuesday at around 1 p.m.
Box Hill's toilets have been the subject of controversy for years. They first became a lightning rod in the political culture war when former Labor leader and current populist agitator Mark Latham publicly attacked the installation of so-called “squat toilets” in the building's interior in 2016.
Since then, listed Australian property investment fund Charter Hall has purchased the building at 913 Whitehorse Rd Box Hill for $230 million, along with the Services Australia Building in Tuggeranong for $306 million and the ATO Building in Albury, NSW, for $85 million.
The commercial real estate industry, which has ceded real estate to work from home, is a big fan of low-risk, long-term government agencies as anchor tenants for buildings.
“The portfolio is characterised by long-term leases with the Commonwealth Government or government-supported tenants with an average WALE. [weighted average lease expiry] of 9.1 years benefiting from fixed rent increases of between 3.5% and 4.0% per annum (3.6% weighted average rent increase),” Charter Hall said in a 2021 statement.
“This acquisition increases the Charter Hall platform’s office portfolio to over $23 billion, backed by a 30 percent stake in government and quasi-government tenants.”
However, after years of struggling with culturally different amenities, it would be nice if the toilets and faucets actually worked, especially when you can't work from home.
The tax authorities are playing it openly.
“In line with workplace health and safety requirements, the ATO has temporarily closed its Box Hill site while our landlord works to resolve the situation,” an ATO spokesperson told The Mandarin.
“The health and safety of our employees is our top priority and we are working with the building owner to ensure this situation does not happen again.”
No pressure. Literally.
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ATO office in Box Hill goes into crisis mode due to further toilet problems
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